Lynch slams Markey on NAFTA, bank bailout, Obamacare

From universal health care and the bank bailout to the local fishing industry, the two Democratic candidates seeking their party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate drew clear battle lines in their first televised debate Wednesday night.

By Chris Burrell/The Patriot Ledger

MetroWest Daily News, Framingham, MA

By Chris Burrell/The Patriot Ledger

Posted Mar. 28, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Mar 28, 2013 at 10:22 AM

By Chris Burrell/The Patriot Ledger

Posted Mar. 28, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Mar 28, 2013 at 10:22 AM

NEEDHAM

» Social News

From universal health care and the bank bailout to the local fishing industry, the two Democratic candidates seeking their party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate drew clear battle lines in their first televised debate Wednesday night.

U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, of South Boston, painted himself as the champion of the working class, the poor and of black and minorities as he slammed fellow congressman Edward Markey, of Malden, for voting for the bank bailout in 2008, NAFTA and the Affordable Care Act.

"You took $787 billion from taxpayers, their tax money, and gave it to Wall Street. You bail out Wall Street but refuse to help American taxpayers," Lynch said to Markey during the half-hour debate at WCVB-TV in Needham, sponsored by The Boston Media Consortium.

Markey said his vote to save banks from failure rescued America from plummeting into another Great Depression.

The primary is April 30, and the special election June 25, to find a replacement for John Kerry, who left the Senate last month to become Secretary of State.

The three Republican hopefuls also debated, starting off the event, but were much tamer by comparison. Only former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan of Abington went on the offensive, challenging Gabriel Gomez, the Cohasset businessman, to explain his experience creating and cutting a budget.

But it was the Democrats who sparred more aggressively, and Lynch who showed off his knack for sounding more like a regular guy than a politician.

"You side with big guys against the litle guy," he said to Markey, who leads Lynch in recent polls. "What’s up with that?"

Markey, while defending his record, also criticized Lynch for some of his votes in Congress, linking him to the possible loss of 16,000 jobs in Massachusetts.

"We had a decision to make on sequester in 2011. We knew there could be draconian cuts," Markey said to Lynch. "You voted yes on sequester."

In the Republican debate, the three contenders all staunchly defended Israel and agreed they would not vote reappoint Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Gomez and Sullivan both said they would vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

And while all three want to save Social Security, not dismantle it, they differed over how to get that done.

"I support means testing. I would argue that Warren Buffett doesn’t need full benefits," said Gomez, the former Navy SEAL and private equity investor.

"It’s not a welfare program; it’s an insurance program," said Winslow, who called for a bipartisan commission to recommend ways to overhaul the system and retool when benefits would be available based on new actuarial data.

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Sullivan said the nation’s $3.7 trillion debt is what really endangers Social Security and Medicare.

The most tense moment among Republicans came when Sullivan challenged Gomez on his abiltiy to plan and trim a budget.

"Can you describe the largest budget you’ve had to manage and amount of cuts you’ve had to make?" Sullivan asked Gomez.

Gomez fell back on his investing experience: "We invest in a lot of companies as large as two to three billion in revenue. We’re responsible to see that company grows."

After the debate, Sullivan told reporters that he is unconvinced by Gomez’s answer.

"It’s not clear to me his response," he said.

When it came time to Gomez to put his opponents on the spot, he refused to be contentious.